Starbright: The Complete Series

by Hilary Thompson

  We make a new plan, to follow the new path. It’s somehow shorter, although it takes us straight through the mountains.

  I stagger to my feet and eat as we walk, Stian dragging my pack on the blanket while my strength rebuilds.

  “Those mountains are so tall,” Irana says, her voice already sounding defeated. Over the last weeks, both she and Pacem have lost so much stamina. Neither were strong to begin with.

  “Can you find us a new way, Rea?” Stian asks, surveying the boulders currently blocking the trail we’ve been following.

  She raises an eyebrow. “Feel like snuggling later?” It seems that cold is a common trait all of us experience after using our powers in such extreme ways. She laughs as he grins, and she begins to climb. Reaching a small summit, she tests the rocks blocking our path. A few rumble and roll out of the way, and she flexes her muscles at us.

  “I can send a bird to record the mountain, and maybe find a path that way, too,” Pacem suggests.

  “How many do you have left?” Trea asks. We’ve been sending bird after bird back to Asphodel, but only received one in return. The people were preparing to leave, but rainstorms were delaying their progress.

  “Three,” Pacem answers.

  “Okay. Send one. I’ll burn away some of this brush, so Rea can see better,” she says, climbing up to join Zarea on the flat ledge. I join them and blow the smoke away from Pacem while he works to program the bird.

  “Is this how we’re supposed to create the Garden?” Irana wonders, joining us after Pacem releases the bird. “Working together to form the land into a perfect home?”

  I stare at her, realizing that must be exactly what we’re meant to do. “I never thought about it like that. But yeah, why else would we have power over each element, right?”

  Excitement begins to build in our little group with this deceptively simple revelation, and soon a path is found and cleared. We make our way through the mountains, still dealing with spontaneous avalanches of rock from the tremors, and the high winds and heavy rains from the thunderstorms which plague the journey.

  But after nearly a week in the mountains, a valley opens before us. We stop on a ledge looking out over a deep canyon, filled with a thousand shades of green. A waterfall marks the other cliff in the distance.

  “Is this it?” Trea breathes next to me.

  Pacem spreads the map open. “This is where Lexan’s path seems to stop,” he confirms.

  I stare at the view, uncertain. Somehow, I expected some sort of sign.

  It’s insanely beautiful, but it’s just another piece of land.

  “Does any of it look familiar?” Zarea asks Stian. I know he’s been hoping we would find the area his parents grew up in. But he just shrugs.

  “I don’t even know if I would recognize anything,” he says, turning away in annoyance.

  “Is it close to the sea?” Irana asks. “I can feel the water, but I can’t see it.”

  “It should be just over the last cliff,” Pacem says.

  “I can make a special path for you,” Zarea grins. “Come on, let’s get down there and check it out!”

  We scramble and slip down the hillside into the ravine, and as I descend, the feeling of rightness grows. Even though I haven’t had a specific vision, I feel like this must be it.

  When we reach the bottom, everyone drops their packs and scatters. I stand unmoving in the middle, waiting for a sign. Hoping.

  “Lexan!” Trea calls from my left.

  I turn and see her, standing next to the largest tree I’ve ever seen. The branches stretch both out and up, creating shelves and towers of leaves. Tiny white flowers dot between the leaves, their pin-dot petals fluttering in the soft breeze.

  “Look,” she says, running her hand along the trunk. There, carved in the bark, is a crescent moon – longer than her palm and bleached white by rain and sun. I reach to touch it, and a sort of low current skips into my fingers.

  “We’re here,” she whispers. “This is it.”

  I nod, barely able to believe it.

  “Lexan, we did it,” she says again, grinning and stepping closer to me. She presses one hand to my chest, and the other over the moon shape, closing her eyes. A second later, the wood of the tree is branded with two stars, barely larger than her fingernail.

  “Spring star, and autumn star, together again under the Goddess Moon,” she whispers, pulling my neck down so her lips touch mine.

  “I love you,” I whisper around her kiss.

  “I love you too, partner,” she grins, tugging me even closer.

  “This place is even larger than I thought,” Stian calls, effectively killing our moment. I sigh, and Trea giggles.

  Together we walk the perimeter of the valley, marking on Pacem’s map where the water sources are, the high ground for protection from flooding, possible escape routes. There are lots of trees with strong, smooth trunks for lumber.

  “And I bet a lot of these are fruit trees,” I add, matching the bark and spring flowers to what I remember of Mother’s work in the Growing Rooms.

  “It’s perfect,” Irana sighs, plucking a pale pink flower from a nearby tree and tracing its petals against her cheek.

  “The map is complete. I’ll copy it in miniature and send it to the travelers,” Pacem grins. We sit to eat and wash in the crystalline waterfall. Pulling a large, white bird from his pack, he holds it up.

  “I’ve been saving this one. White is a symbol of peace. I hope this Garden brings us the peace we’ve each been searching for – as long as I can remember,” he adds in a soft voice, staring into Irana’s eyes. She flushes, and we all smile as he rolls the map into the belly of the metal bird, then programs it to search for the True Prophet, along the route we’ve taken.

  “It will work, won’t it?” Zarea asks.

  “It has to,” Pacem answers simply. He stands and winds the crank under the bird’s wing, then tosses it in the air. It falls for a second, then flutters, then catches the air with its iridescent wings. Rising quickly toward the mountains we’ve left behind, it becomes a silhouette against the sun for a few brief seconds before vanishing in the horizon.

  We all watch it, then the absence of it, for too many minutes, and I say a prayer for its journey to be quick and safe.

  Much depends on such a tiny invention.

  Finally, I turn to Trea. “Should we start building today?”

  “Wait,” Pacem says. “There’s someone up there!”

  I swivel and follow where his finger points. There’s a group of four silhouettes gathered on the ledge where we were just hours ago.

  Zarea shifts, picking up her bow and arrow, and Stian nods at her, doing the same. I can’t see the figures clearly – only their still, dark shapes against the bright blue sky.

  “Friendly?” I whisper, hopeful.

  Then one of them lifts a long stick, the others howl in a way no human ever should, and too late I realize the answer to my question.

  A crack resounds through the valley, and every color instantly seems brighter as I feel the bullet whoosh past me in the air, and I hear the gasping intake of Pacem’s breath as it pushes through his skin, directly into his heart.

  The air brings me all of this in terrible detail, in mere fractions of seconds. I expect to hear nothing else. To hear the emptiness of such unnecessary loss.

  But instead I hear the horrible, guttural screaming noise flowing from Irana’s open mouth as she follows the arc of Pacem’s slumping body, holding and shaking him even as he sinks into the new grass.

  Stian and Zarea aren’t even in sight any more – the only sign of them is a crashing noise as they sprint up the hillside after our attackers. Screaming begins above me, too, and all I can do is turn toward Irana. I’m shaking too much to be of any use to anyone.

  I should have noticed – should have realized what was happening. Maybe I could have stopped the bullet in time. Maybe blown it away, off course.

  I want to apologize, to console. But
words are impossible to form in the face of such grief. Trea kneels next to her, gripping Irana’s shoulders, holding the sobbing girl. They both slump over the body as I look on helplessly, frozen in the useless pose of protector.

  I watch the woods above us, the meadow before us, the sky, the water, the earth. I watch, but nothing moves.

  It seems like hours have passed when Irana’s voice gives out, quieting to heaving sobs as she presses her face to Pacem’s unmoving chest. I hear Stian and Zarea before I see them, but once they come into view, I can’t help but recoil.

  They’re covered in blood and ash.

  “We found them. Lost. But they won’t hurt anyone again,” Zarea says, pushing past me to the stream. She flings a gun on the bank next to her.

  “It was our gun,” is all she says, and I realize the Lost must have somehow found the things we lost in the cave-in. The water begins to run red as she rinses her arms and face. Stian stands next to me, staring at the two girls huddled next to the body – staring, but not really seeing.

  “Those things can’t be allowed anywhere near the travelers,” he finally says. Zarea glances up from the stream.

  “No, Stian. Please,” she whispers, as close to begging as I’ve ever heard. It makes me sick to hear her fear.

  Stian grimaces too, turning his face back to the empty cliff. “You have to stay here. But I’m not needed to create a garden. The travelers need me more. It would be a massacre, Rea.”

  I think she’s going to protest for a spare second, but then her face hardens. “You’re right. It’s for the best.”

  He joins her at the stream and they begin to whisper. I’ve barely had time to process that we’re going to be two people down when Irana begins to scream again, her voice nearly gone with overuse.

  I turn to see Trea standing beneath the pink-blossomed tree, arms spread unnaturally wide, a cruel grin slashed onto her mouth. She begins to laugh, and my knees give out.

  “No,” I whisper.

  “Oh, yes, Lexan,” Hade says through her lips. “I’m still in here. I’ve simply been resting up – and such big things are happening now, my young Libran.”

  Zarea spins and aims an arrow at Trea, but Stian pulls her arm back.

  “It’ll just kill Tre,” he hisses.

  “The boy is right. Don’t you think I could find another willing host?” Trea’s arm jerks down to point at Irana, who trembles against Pacem’s body. I know he could do it. I shake my head in warning at Zarea, and her weapon lowers.

  “Oh, I am going to have so much fun in this new playground. This is just the beginning,” he laughs, Trea’s head snapping back as the black smoke snakes out of her mouth, coiling heavily around her neck for a heartbeat, before sliding up the branches just above her head. As the last of it leaves her, her body slumps to the ground, her limbs twisted beneath her like a puppet whose strings have been snipped.

  “Trea!” I yell and scramble toward her. She lies limp in my arms as I feel for a pulse. It’s faint, but it’s there.

  “Is he gone?” Zarea asks, stepping forward, her fingers gripped tightly around the arrow still in her hand.

  “He’s never gone,” Irana whispers.

  FOURTY

  ASTREA

  December 21, 2067

  Each of us has felt the blackness for weeks. We just didn’t know how completely it would come to consumer our little world.

  Mother was our balance, and today she is dead. I can barely see through my tears to write this. I’m afraid I might never stop crying – I just needed a little longer.

  Just another month, and the sisters would have helped me rescue her.

  But instead Mother went to market to protect us, and there was no-one there to protect her. Now that our four has become three, we are no longer even.

  Our existence is threatened just by our existence.

  This ending is really only a beginning to the most terrible story ever told.

  From Aisa’s personal journal, saved from before the Cleansing

  I’ve never seen colors as bright as those in this valley, but still, at the corner of every glance, there is always black. It reminds me of the night I visited Hade in his bedroom. He waits somewhere just out of sight, a foul black bird preening in his nest of color.

  Lexan thinks Hade is gone from my body, and I’m glad that at least he feels some relief from that. But I know he’s wrong. I may not hear Hade’s voice in my mind anymore, but I sure as Styx feel his lingering gaze like a shadow on my soul every time I close my eyes.

  This Garden was supposed to be our new safe haven, but now we all feel as though dangers lurk here instead. The first thing we build in our new paradise home is a graveyard, and that is surely the worst sort of omen.

  Irana and I walk silently to the tree we’ve marked as the center of the valley, where Lexan hopes to eventually build a temple for the Moon Goddess. For now, it is home to our single, shared tent. Lexan and Zarea are already there, portioning out lunch. None of us goes anywhere alone, and we rotate partners as often as the elements batter our defenses.

  “Zarea has uprooted a dozen more trees for lumber,” Lexan says to me as we gather for lunch. “Can you burn off the leaves and branches?”

  I nod absently. Thank the gods for Lexan. He, at least, keeps us on target. I do see the fear and depression swimming deep in his eyes, but he holds it under well, trying to drown it before its sticky fingers reach further into his mind.

  “When should we start on widening the stream?” Irana asks. Her voice is listless, defeated. She does everything we ask, but grief has stolen so much of her peace.

  “Today is as good as any. It’s hot anyways – I wouldn’t mind the water,” Zarea says. We’ve marked out the inner circle and four quadrants of my design with lines of burnt grass, and now we’re ensuring each quadrant has ample water and lumber to build, once the people begin to arrive.

  “Today is the first day of May,” Lexan says, checking another box off in the book he keeps.

  “May Day,” Zarea says, a hint of a smile on her lips. “We used to celebrate it in Hebron. Dancing, drinking. A celebration of spring.”

  Nobody responds to her. Although we have come so far in our fulfillment of the prophecy, our daily work is so lonely and our results so far in the future.

  “Once everyone gets here, we’ll have a celebration,” Irana says. “I’ll even dance for the people.” She gazes into the distant sky, and I wonder what memories are dancing across her mind. “Or maybe for myself,” she whispers, and I think I’m the only one to hear her, until Lexan presses his hand on top of hers.

  “That is your test, isn’t it?” he asks.

  “Yes. To learn to dance for myself. It’s impossible, though. Why would peace be so selfish?” With this she gets up and wades into the stream, her back to us as she hurries away. Zarea sighs and walks after her, keeping a good distance behind.

  “Grief is selfish, isn’t it,” I say to Lexan, remembering the days and weeks following Mother’s death, when I cared for nothing except my own pain.

  He just watches me, unwilling to answer.

  The days sweep by faster than I can keep up with, and in the midst of our exhaustion, we each begin to watch the skies constantly for a bird from Stian or the Prophet, or a wisp of smoke from the caravans. Anything to let us know the people are on their way.

  Anything to show us we aren’t alone in this whole great world.

  I help as much as I can, but what use is fire, once the land has been cleared of debris, and the trees stripped of branches?

  Zarea carves roads through the mountains, and between each of the four quadrants. Irana weaves ribbons of water into new streambeds. Even Lexan must be present to Balance all of us – his very power acts as a scale, measuring what is done, and what is left to do. Weighing what might be too much change for the world, and what will help our new community survive.

  Ensuring none of us tax our power too much, and fade into nothingness, like Zarea’s sist
ers.

  “I think we need a day off,” Lexan says one morning. “For rest.” None of us argue. Zarea promptly stretches out in the sun and falls asleep. Lexan leans against a tree, studying his book of prayers. Irana disappears into the tent.

  After a few minutes, I join her, although I know she probably doesn’t want company. A garland of spicy-sweet roses is hung from the smoke-hole, and the shifting clouds outside make curls of shadow on the fabric walls. She lies on her back in the center, staring at the bits of blue and white above her.

  I sit cross-legged next to her. “Okay?” I ask, my voice soft but still too loud in the enclosed area.

  She smiles, even though a tear slips down her cheek. “Did you know he died for me twice?” A single sound escapes her at the end, and I can’t decide if it’s a laugh or sob.

  “Twice,” she repeats. “Once in the fire that killed my mother. He saved me. Then once when a bullet, formed from the metals of the earth, claimed the air from his lungs. All that was left was water. We could have survived water. I could have protected him from that…”

  I reach over and grasp her fingers in mine, but she doesn’t even react. Her hand remains limp and chilled in mine, although the tent is hot with the afternoon sun.

  “He’s up there, isn’t he? Somewhere in the stars, waiting for me. Isn’t he?”

  “I think so,” I answer, tilting my head to look through the swaying chain of roses into the sky. “If he can’t be right here watching over you, he must be up there doing the same. Just keep your sights in those stars, and you’ll be together again one day.” The words sound ugly on my lips – too little comfort, too flippant.

  She looks at me, and her eyes shine with the water of too many tears. She smiles, and she looks more like an angel than ever.

  “Please stay here a while longer,” I say suddenly, then snap my mouth closed. Why did I say that?

  “I will. The three maidens are still needed,” she says. “But when the eclipse is done, perhaps I will be done, too. When the darkness passes, perhaps I will as well.” She turns her attention back to the circle of sky above her. It grows too quiet in the tent, and my brain fills with too many fears.